Advertisers underspend on radio

LONDON: One fifth of all advertising expenditure should be allocated to radio rather than the 6% that currently goes there, according to the UK's Radio Advertising Bureau.

The marketing body for radio based this claim on a new research study which examined 2,000 individual media campaigns across 517 separate brand campaigns.

Simon Redican, RAB managing director, said the key thing about the study was that the econometric data was taken directly from media agencies and consequently the analysis provided "the most detailed and robust perspective on radio ROI in the world".

"When Martin Sorrell calls econometrics 'The Holy Grail' of advertising, you can be sure agencies place high importance on it," he added, in remarks reported by The Drum.

The research established that radio advertising generated a 7.7 return on investment, which put it second only to TV and ahead of press, outdoor and online.

Redcan hoped that such findings would encourage advertisers to look again at platforms with a "more proven" ROI than newer digital ones. He also planned to target brand finance directors with this message, Marketing Week reported.

"There's a real business message in the data, and that is that in order to get the best ROI, advertisers should be spending 20 per cent [of campaign budgets] on radio," he declared.